I love revisiting the history of BTD6. I still can't believe its been 6 years, I still remember when Mortar was first added and I also remember when Engie finally got added.
@@HbombI can't blame him, seeing the mortar drop in the craters is so satisfying, all those Bloons clumped together getting vaporized by the biggest one is why that map is one of my favorites.
I still remember when I downloaded this game back in 2018. I was amazed by all the expansion that NK made, making BTD5 look ancient. Was it buggy and incomplete? Yes. But they kept at it and made it the game we all know and love today. Favorite update? Probably 35. NK realized that HBomb's beard had grown way too powerful for this world so they had to nerf it.
@@mdb45424 you mean x4x? upgrading DotJ is not worth it, and it cant fucking solo any map maybe like logs on easy it can barely beat any moabs, its a good tower for many things especially for early game but it cant solo maps i think it dies in the 40's even if it does beat the moab on r40 and it for sure dies 50's. without support as you said JUST give it camo. DotJ is a fire tower one of the best for speedrunning and for early game on experts. but 5k on buying the t4 for an ability that is useless and chimps and some damage buff(you can just buy another 3 DotJ for that price which do way more in bloon and moab killing)
Druid farming is viable with farms around them. 140 druid good early game. 150 good until around 90 unless you have a 230 village by him... In which case he's pretty good to about 98... This is obviously map dependent. Trying to use 150 Druid on #ouch solo MIGHT get you through 80... Don't think there's enough track though and haven't tested it in a real game. Any beginner and intermediate map, though, you should be fine.
@adamjensen4129 druid x4x money is basically pointless. Even with 5 farms around them they barely get 500 gold every 2 rounds. X6x is 2000 a round I think, but your investment is massive. The middle path is more utility with a tiny bit of cash gen
I love how Ninja Kiwi is handling BTD6, I remember being excited for the game, and when it was released on Steam it was met with mixed reviews, but now look where it is today, the best tower defense game ever made and still growing better and bigger with every single update
The Late Game era was my favourite, Boss Events are the thing that keeps me playing BTD6 and I’ve managed to complete every single one so far, if boss weren’t added I probably would’ve dropped the game years ago
I joined the game 8.0 and remember challenge editor and coop being incredibly hype, even queuing up some random coop games the day the patch came out. Haven’t touched the game in a while but came back for odysseys then again for boss events. Crazy to see how far this game has come
While playing a game, we think "how can I win", NOT "how to design a more fun game", obviously. This carries over into how feedback is given. Nerfs are a difficult and brave thing because they always upset the players. But a game with broken strategies is generally less fun.
As a roguelike fan, I'd say otherwise; it gives players a chance to play by the rules, or break the game. In strategy based games this is definitely an issue, since most players won't be that kind to play the game properly. Hell, even I myself cheese BTD6 to death from time to time.
With the amount of content in BTD6 right now, its one of the best deals on steam because of its 14$ price point (and only 7$ on mobile.) I'd say a good addition they should add is steam workshop support because of mods being more popular and would vastly increase its content and longevity
I still remember launching the game and being mad at it, there were no dartling, no engineer... Now I can't see myself stop playing it from time to time. So addicting ❤
All of those changes make it hard for new players like me to learn how some heroes works, so it would be nice if you made a guide for the current versions of the heroes
just read the hero's level description and try them out, they are not complex except geraldo and even geraldo is not complex on its own but geraldo is one of the heros that its worth to learn fully the meta with. like whenever geraldo came out i understood the hero and the items but today you just need to improve with him because he is worse than he was on realease
The times around right when Bloonarius was introduced will always be the glory days in my opinion. Though BTD6 has arguably gotten better balance wise since then.
It’s so weird to realize that soulbind was removed basically at launch. I remeber using it a couple of times but I didn’t remember it was removed that early
@@Hbombyou should do more like this but like compare the updates like “which update got more (insert thing here)?” or “Which update got less (insert thing here)?”
surprised that you didn't talk about the rollercoaster that is the top patch beast master. it went from being a boat paragon at home, to being literally unusable, to now being an ok upgrade path
To address your confusion as to why people didn't like those updates: you're right, it's because stuff they liked got nerfed. Not that that's an invalid reason to dislike an update. There's a reason devs try to fix things with buffs if possible. Things you like getting nerfed never feels good. But sometimes, it's gotta be done.
yeah these heavy nerfs have made the game feel like a slog or a chore to play on any map harder than beginner tbh. makes me lose my mind trying to figure out a strategy on every map not knowing what will fail or not.
@@mineturte _figuring out a strategy on every map not knowing what will fail or not_ is the feeling a lot of tower defense players, and puzzle players in general LOVE.
@@aguyontheinternet8436 yeah I'm not saying that is a bad thing at all, to each their own. but personally the downside of having to restart an entire game to just experiment got really exhausting for me at a certain point, especially with all of the "meta" towers changing all the time.
Playing meta is really the most boring way to play for me. If you're trying to push for highest level hardest map completions then it makes sense to try use the best stuff, but it ain't pvp and you can really make basically anything work almost anywhere so driving yourself crazy using the same few top overpowered strats over and over on every map is going to get boring.
7:11 Druid of the jungle always had the vines attack, it just didn't use to have the road item part of the vines. it was dumpster tier for obvious reasons even at a... I think it was 700$ pricetag.
@@Nobody1707 at that time the vine attack didn't even need hard thorns to hit lead, which was the only thing it couldn't damage. DoW wants to have MiB to get more thorns so kind of a meh buff.
i remember playing the game for an afternoon shortly after the game launched, but recently came back because my friend randomly asked if i wanted to play it. its really addictive and even though i didnt really understand lots of the stuff in this video, it was enjoyable to listen and to know the history
The fact that you completely left out the fact that they KILLED Permaspike is wild to me. That tower's pierce and viability was nerfed into the ground, they took my permaspikle behind the shed and shot it dead :(
Did they kill it? No. Its still Incredibly viable in plenty of scenarios. What did do was give it a necessary nerf session. Remember at the start of the games life Permanspike was THE BEST tower in the game. Its still Incredibly viable at being a final defense which was what its supposed to be, its made to create a wall that stops any leaks, not a dps option... Play btdb2 if you want it to be a dps option its Amazing in that game
Yeah. Loved perma spike. But i guess it was for the better, to balance towers out to make them evenly good. I also find it amazing that if you have the skills almost any tower combo can work in BTD6. I myself love glue gunner, loved it since BTD4- and still love it to this day.
it's still viable and the nerf only impacted it before round 80 due to how bloon children spawning works after round 80. PSpike is a lategame tower so it really didn't gutter it like people seem to think
My favorite tier 5 is Super Mines(don’t ask me why), and it’s probably gone from the worst tier five at launch to a really good tower for it’s price. I mean, it’s gotten only 5 nerfs, 2 of which were indirect, and meanwhile it now sits at 30 buffs.
every time someone mentions powercreep I bring up the pre nerf pspike and comanche. i'm 100% certain that with the first few update's towers you could beat most LCCs set today if the player's skill was as good as today. also a good point to bring up is how they constantly nerfed lategame, with round 3000 being possible before and nowadays its impossible to reach round 1000
Day 3 of asking for the battles 2 nuzlocke challenge Rules:have to start a new account Once you get defeated you cant use the towers and heroes that youve lost with (it counts if you place them) Challenge is completed once you get to 100🏆 You have to record the time and trophys that youve gotten through the challenge You're subscribers have to pick 2 towers to ban and a hero (hero alt is instant eliminated with the hero)
If someone were to collate all the balance changes and the data/decisions behind them, this would be a truly excellent case study in how to provide ongoing support for a game like this. Along with the business case of how they have stayed profitable and relevant, this one game could be a foundation course in a Business of Gaming master's course.
I started playing about a week or two before 27. I had played btd5 years before and I consider it one of my top games when I was 5-12. So I decided to pick up btd6 to give it a go. Now it's my favourite game of all time and I have a good ~1700 - ~2000 hours in it, much to my phones dismay. Despite being a 'newer' player this video was very nostalgic to watch and it just reminded me of how much I love this game and what it means to me. Thank you for making this
10:53 That explains so much! Tack Zone was always one of my go tos but then suddenly it felt like it wasn't performing as well. That must have been around that update!
I feel like the biggest nerf was to the permaspike as you could cheese most maps with it. The biggest buff(s) is probably towards the wizard monkey, considering how much buffs it got throughout the years
I think 32.0 was disliked because of the CT gamemode. It has nothing to do with the nerfs of buffs! Also I strongly disagree about "The Nerf Era". I think NK buffed a lot of things, it wasn't the nerf era for me to be honest! Here's a few recent changes that I think were pretty heavy buffs: 5xx and xx4 Glue Gunner 4xx Wizard xx4 Sniper xx5 Heli xx5 Village 4xx Tack Shooter x5x Boat (as you said) x3x Super Monkey These ones are the ones I remember. I'm sure they are a lot of them in the list! This aside, great video covering the story of BTD6, love to see it! :)
@@Hbomb It's great stuff. I'll say your voice cut offs make it sound a little "rushed", but I like that for when you do your Shorts. Best I can suggest would be to add the "Chapters" so people can jump to the specific sections more quickly that they are most interested about.
Man, they NEED to fix the 042/052 spike factory. A bug a few updates ago made them get rid of the synergy for the ability at the start of rounds. Can you please make a video on this? NK needs to put their attention on this.
I remember when my brother told me about btd6 and we both pre-ordered it and as soon as it came out we started playing. Honestly I remember being so familiar with btd5 i didnt liked 5 more but i eventually got used to it.
Why is era 3 called "late game"? From my perspective, as someone who really really enjoys going for high rounds they just keep making late game less and less fun to play. Ramping got increased multiple times, which is fair enough but I dont see a reason for the last ramping increase. On top of that the game is practically not coded for late game at all. Anything past r300 is like a fewer dream for people with bad devices. Paragons arent changing freeplay at all either. The main strat is still temple spam and probably will always be temple spam. Paragons are just a neat addition to the regular strat. I dont see any positive changes for this kind of late game during the era called late game. However last update NK did something I as a late game fan really like. They made grand sabo permanent with ninja paragon and they finally made it possible to hide projectiles. And they reduced the ammount of bloons, which is barely noticable so... its more or less a non-change. Those are the kind of changes I think late game really needs. Apart from a rework of the entire game to increase performance. And what late game needs is an actual incentive to do it. Cuz right now there isnt one other than a high number on your profile which is like... yehaa no one cares. The instas arent an incentive cuz you can farm those much better in other ways, that also give a good ammount of monkey money at the same time. And thats kinda sad for me cuz I feel like finding out the highest possible round is kinda in the nature of tower defense games. But in BTD6 its just a chore to do without any rewards.
holy shit writing stuff on mobile really makes you loose track of how long it is. jesus christ. uh basically: 1. if era 3 "late game" refers to general late game like for experienced players who have played for a long time then all of this doesn matter 2. if it refers to like high rounds then there is no reason to call that era "late game" but more like "anti late game" because: a: there wasnt a single positive change I can remember of the top of my head for freeplay during that time. quite the opposite actually. ramping was increased, paragons got nerfed and the strat of temple spam will likely never change and certainly didnt change at all with paragons b: imo NK started going into a freeplay friendly direction again last update. mainly thanks to perma gsabo with ninja paragon and the ability to make projectiles smaller. the round generation change doesnt really matter at all. c: I find it weird that a tower defense game makes finding out the highest round not just useless but also kinda unfun. which is why I think that it still needs some much needed changes
All of this is 100% true. Ramping changes and vtsg nerfs have done more to effect lategame then paragons could ever dream of. Hell the adora buff pretty much doubled lategame firepower. Just goes to show how overrated paragons are.
What was best way to farm? Boats What was the best to deal with MOAB Class Bloons? The Absolute Zero What was the most used Paragon? The Apex Plasma Master What was dealing the most Damage for its price? The Tack Zone Easiest Black Border? The Elite Sniper Best Early Game Bloon Popper? The Wall Of Fire Easiest way to do with Super Ceramics? Downdraft Money Saver? Summon Phoenix Who lost the Best Beard In bloons? HBOMB I feel the most problems in Update 33.0 and Update 34.0 to be hated a lot Update 33.0 As NK looking forward on 33.0, they decided to add a Ace Paragon and Dreadbloon. But the stuff was too much for them so decided to delay the boss on 34.0 while also make to 3 paragon per game which makes players wants to get every single paragon in 1 game. Also affect in co-op with 4 players. Only 3/4 but the problem is only 3 in Late game is not enough. Making it to be hated as well. Update 34.0 As NK looking forward on 33.0, they decided to Breast Handler to Update 34.0 but was replaced with Dreadbloon as NK wants to have some break on January and decided to push the Breast Handler to 36.0 which makes the community 2 Extra updates for it. Only getting a Boss with no new tower. Lastly, Update 32.0 is my least favorite. As no more infinite Paragons and a teamwork Game Mode but the problem is Lack Of Communication. Plauers mostly use Discord Servers to make a team. I'm sure okay the Builder they added but I never use it since Doomship was added
i didn't realise this until today but i actually first downloaded btd6 within months of its release, which explains why i remember stuff like the release of the mortar monkey and even i think benjamin.
@@Hbomb yeah, i'm used to being like late in many games lifespan, but i'm now realising that many of my favourite games i've been playing since very early in their history
I would argue that 22.0 and 27.0 changed btd6 forever. I think this because 22.0 added challenge browser and 27.0 added bosses, and then 27.0 also added a completely new concept and mechanic (also known as paragons)
whatever update the engi got added in was my favourite. i think i remember when the x-x-4 or x-x-5 engi I THINK was able to pop leads with his nailguns too
Perma spike surviving all these nerfs is amazing. even in 37.0 the index ranks it in A which is pretty high like top 20 and is a top 10 tier 5 overall. I wish people tested it in a more realistic scenario instead of looking at "omg dies to 2 cerams pre round 80 it must be a dead tower" when in reality its still an amazong tower late game esp vs ddt's and makes them a non worry
if were comparing the mobile versions alone, pvz is ad-infested, to be fair were comparing a free game to a paid game but pvz already had IAPs so less ads would be great@@jams_toast1
The upcoming Update 38 Will be a New boss called *Phayze* , very similar to lych this is a new boss we haven't seen before, all we know is the name of the boss and nothing else but there will be an expecting teaser for the new boss coming very soon On top of that in Update 40 there will be a sub Paragon and a similar Gamemode like contested territory: *Boss Rush*
i remember starting around 9.0 or 10.0 my brother was doing a swim meet til i realised 11.0 was releasing, which i noticed was having co op me and him were one of the first ever to play a co op match of btd 6
Video idea: Which Heroes had the best strats/were the most powerful in notable updates. Right off the bat, I think of release Sauda and Geraldo who were both pretty powerful as soon as they came out.
I’m just gonna say this now paragon limit was a super overheated change. It did basically nothing to the game’s meta while provoking unmatched community outrage.
the community outrage because of that was stupid. cuz not only did it not really change boss battles it didnt change freeplay either. cuz paragons never really had a big impact on the freeplay meta anyways. they just were a nifty addition to the already meta temple spam.
It was horrible when first introduced, because it applied outside of bosses. Why shouldn't you be able to get every paragon just for funsies in your lategame logs run? That hurts no one, so naturally people flamed NK for it. The limit makes a lot more sense in bosses.
@@jimmyjohnjoejr this is what I’m talking about, people throwing massive fits over absolutely nothing. Paragon limit also really doesn’t hurt anyone. Except maybe those uneducated people who actually think paragons are worth using for freeplay. And secondly, nk gave a reason for the paragon limit. It’s because they’re planning to release a lot of powerful paragons with a lot of powerful abilities, and allowing them all at once would be too broken. You should be excited that paragons were going to be more powerful and have extremely strong game changing abilities, not throwing a fit that you can’t get your favorite paragon in your mediocre logs freeplay run. And if you really cared that much about freeplay you’d have thrown riots when vtsg was nerfed or when freeplay scaling was buffed beyond belief. So here’s what “the paragon limit” is actually about: little Timmy is angry he can’t get all the paragons in one game and goes to throw a fit about it on the internet. And before you say “but what about freedom sandbox game blah blah blah” I don’t care. Nerfs and changes happen all the time. What normal people do when their favorite tower is nerfed is get a little upset and then go on with their lives. And that’s what should have happened with the paragon limit.
Good video, but I notice you never mentioned how the beast handler was so broken that it could 1-shot BADs at launch. There might be some power creep in there somewhere
I know people will say the nerfs were necessary but personally they killed my enthusiasm for the game. I been playing the game less and less since update 32 and now almost never play. Update 31 was by far my favorite, I personally enjoyed when the game was more relaxing and easier to play and the community was able to make crazy difficult challenges in order to keep the game difficult. I feel the nerf prevent people from trying new challenges and make the game less fun for both casual and competitive players. If I want to challenge myself I can place weaker towers but if I want to place geraldo and go to round 300 I also can. Anyway that it just my opinion.
unfortunately it devalued chimps as the "difficult" mode, and black bordering by extension. you have people like you on one side but then you have the "chimps is too easy nowadays it poses zero challenge" players
It's crazy to see the amount of changes that happened after 32.0. I took a big break around the time 32.0 was released and didn't really touch the game. I'd gotten full black borders by abusing the op middle path snipers, and my favourite game mode, races, were getting a little stale. The amount of balancing Ninja Kiwi has done from then til now has completely changed the game. It's made it a lot more fun to experiment with different stuff instead of just using the 'meta' towers, because now there just isn't as large a benefit from using them. Overall I think the game is in a good and healthy spot, and hopefully Ninja Kiwi can find ways to keep it fresh and exciting.
Really funny how you described it as the nerf era. While I would have called it the buff era. The only nerfs we got were not destructive. They were o ly there to bring the power a bit lower. While all the buffs we got were amazingly interesting and creative. New abilities were given to monkeys. Reworks were happening every patch. And already interesting bad towers were buffed but kept their originality. Instead of making 10 towers with the same purpose, they gave them distinctions, and made the cross path and prior upgrades different enouththat it made them usefully in really different situations. While the already amazing towers were only given stats nerfs, and none of their abilities were taken out. Making them interesting towers to strategise around and not braindeadly speed running their good crosspath.
The funny thing about Bloons is that it's balanced like an MMO, but it's a tower defense game. There's not much reason to be balanced other than for replayability. It's awesome that they do this. I wish they could bring make a Bloons monkey city game mode for 6. Early BMC before the micro transactions.
Just looking at the most recent btd 6 index chimps tier list you can see how balanced the game is currently. Almost every tower and hero has viability in some right
@@BirdGod XBM: XXL trap: Bomb blitz: Inferno ring: Shall I go on? Also, just because some towers are usable doesn’t mean all are created equal. Sure I could use aow or Apache prime but why would I when stuff like Gerry snipers and gmn exist. The game does have very good balance but it’s a stretch to say every tower has some sort of viability. Viability implies that they will be worth using at some time, and that really isn’t true for a lot of towers for some reason or another
The nerfs to 2-0-X Tack Shooters and the Monkeyopolis are two changes I've never fully understood. Not every crosspath can be equally viable. Overdrive and Tack Zone didn't need an indirect attack speed nerf. And only the "Miniopolis" needed to be killed off, not the "full-sized" Monkeyopolis.
they Nerf the 2-0-0 for tack shooter because it was too good for tack Zone and below i think they will try to balance other crosspaths for other towers
I agree that killing off the full sized opolis was pretty stupid considering it required a lot of setup and was primarily used for late game and boss events; however I do understand the nerf to TZ. TZ is still overall a really good tower, the only problem I have is the middle path still needs a major buff.
@@cyborgbob1017 TZ after the nerfs is still a Great pick but about the full sized monkeyopolis i don't use it very often other than bosses and E bosses
Man, I hate Era 4. I've barely played the game since they started nerfing everything into the ground. Beast Handler was pretty fun until they made it unusably bad. It just doesn't seem like there are any fun towers left.
beast handler is an amazing tower... sure top path beast handler is not as good but it was never meant to be as good... so it was just that weak on release. there are many viable towers.. and every tower can win a game of chimps when used right, u can win with BMA its just much harder
Get used to it. The nerfs don’t really effect anything unless you’re an expert player doing chimps challenges on expert maps, and you most definitely are not one of those players consider you just said the beast handler is shit lmao
Pat's roar made it really easy to get through tough rounds through all stages of the game. Especially since you'd pair him with either a Tack Zone or Grandmaster Ninja who's tier 4 upgrades also had many projectiles.
What was your favorite update?
Mine was probably 27.0
Mine was 30.0
update 36.2
3.1 🔥🔥🔥🔥
34.0: Featuring The Dreadbloon, Churchill skin and the first map to have different buffs on the 24 trees
Arguably 31.0 I remember buying the game shortly before this update and had some fun with OP geraldo
I love revisiting the history of BTD6. I still can't believe its been 6 years, I still remember when Mortar was first added and I also remember when Engie finally got added.
Right!? I remember making a Moon Landing guide without using the mortar and my friend got mad at me XD
@@HbombI can't blame him, seeing the mortar drop in the craters is so satisfying, all those Bloons clumped together getting vaporized by the biggest one is why that map is one of my favorites.
@@Hbombhi :)
I remember when the dartilng gunner was finally revealed. I swear I almost passed out lol.
5 not 6
I still remember when I downloaded this game back in 2018. I was amazed by all the expansion that NK made, making BTD5 look ancient. Was it buggy and incomplete? Yes. But they kept at it and made it the game we all know and love today.
Favorite update? Probably 35. NK realized that HBomb's beard had grown way too powerful for this world so they had to nerf it.
Lmao!
@Hbomb please make a only alchemist CHIMPS run
He alreafy tried and its just impossible because of camos@UltraboostedIndiann
@@Virtualboi2 SHITTT
Never knew that Druid middle path is so amazing for midgame today to balance out how broken it was in boss events before
its not amazing for midgame, its amazing for early game, after r40 its still really good but it falls off
1/2, 4, x are some of the best popping power in the game, just give camouflage and they can almost solo some maps
@@mdb45424 you mean x4x? upgrading DotJ is not worth it, and it cant fucking solo any map maybe like logs on easy it can barely beat any moabs, its a good tower for many things especially for early game but it cant solo maps i think it dies in the 40's even if it does beat the moab on r40 and it for sure dies 50's. without support as you said JUST give it camo. DotJ is a fire tower one of the best for speedrunning and for early game on experts. but 5k on buying the t4 for an ability that is useless and chimps and some damage buff(you can just buy another 3 DotJ for that price which do way more in bloon and moab killing)
Druid farming is viable with farms around them. 140 druid good early game. 150 good until around 90 unless you have a 230 village by him... In which case he's pretty good to about 98... This is obviously map dependent. Trying to use 150 Druid on #ouch solo MIGHT get you through 80... Don't think there's enough track though and haven't tested it in a real game. Any beginner and intermediate map, though, you should be fine.
@adamjensen4129 druid x4x money is basically pointless. Even with 5 farms around them they barely get 500 gold every 2 rounds. X6x is 2000 a round I think, but your investment is massive. The middle path is more utility with a tiny bit of cash gen
I love how Ninja Kiwi is handling BTD6, I remember being excited for the game, and when it was released on Steam it was met with mixed reviews, but now look where it is today, the best tower defense game ever made and still growing better and bigger with every single update
I know, they're doing such a good job!
I guess I picked a good game to make videos about :)
@@Aarvaagenif you're gonna say that why not elaborate further
@@megagames4989
I think Kingdom Rush is a better tower defence game. Moreover, even Bloons Tower Defence 5 is better than 6.
@@Aarvaageni know it's your own opinion, but why is btd5 better than btd6
@@A_Certified_Idiot nostalgia makes people blind sometimes
I'm surprised you didn't mention the massive Perma-Spike Nerf in one of the later updates, considering how much people (me) lost their mind over it.
I probably should have, but I am working on a short "History of the Perma Spike" video rn
@@Hbomb Wow! You're going back and responding t comments from over a year ago??
The Late Game era was my favourite, Boss Events are the thing that keeps me playing BTD6 and I’ve managed to complete every single one so far, if boss weren’t added I probably would’ve dropped the game years ago
I joined the game 8.0 and remember challenge editor and coop being incredibly hype, even queuing up some random coop games the day the patch came out. Haven’t touched the game in a while but came back for odysseys then again for boss events. Crazy to see how far this game has come
Yeah, they've added so much. If only every game company did this
The honest truth.
While playing a game, we think "how can I win", NOT "how to design a more fun game", obviously. This carries over into how feedback is given. Nerfs are a difficult and brave thing because they always upset the players. But a game with broken strategies is generally less fun.
As a roguelike fan, I'd say otherwise; it gives players a chance to play by the rules, or break the game. In strategy based games this is definitely an issue, since most players won't be that kind to play the game properly. Hell, even I myself cheese BTD6 to death from time to time.
With the amount of content in BTD6 right now, its one of the best deals on steam because of its 14$ price point (and only 7$ on mobile.) I'd say a good addition they should add is steam workshop support because of mods being more popular and would vastly increase its content and longevity
Yeah, it's an amazing deal.
And they've been talking about the steam workshop for a bit now, they're just not there yet
not to mention the frequent sales, sometimes quite massive
its only like $3.124 in the summer steam sale and even better its just like 108rs($1.35) in india at the time of steam summer sale
wouldn't work well with epic games (the way i got it) and mobile
It’s free if you have Netflix on mobile
I've been playing this game for a while but was absolutely shocked to learn the mortar was added after the initial release.
Yep. It’s wild the game wasn’t released with it, or the Dartling or Engineer.
I still remember launching the game and being mad at it, there were no dartling, no engineer... Now I can't see myself stop playing it from time to time. So addicting ❤
All of those changes make it hard for new players like me to learn how some heroes works, so it would be nice if you made a guide for the current versions of the heroes
This! Towers sometimes drastically change a path and suddenly strategies I knew like 4 months ago don't work anymore at all
just read the hero's level description and try them out, they are not complex except geraldo and even geraldo is not complex on its own but geraldo is one of the heros that its worth to learn fully the meta with. like whenever geraldo came out i understood the hero and the items but today you just need to improve with him because he is worse than he was on realease
Some quests are literally a guide for heros
Quests are being added that teach you how to use heroes, it's a newer system and slowly being implemented but it's something that is being made.
@@zachcake6231Tbh this was needed so much
The times around right when Bloonarius was introduced will always be the glory days in my opinion. Though BTD6 has arguably gotten better balance wise since then.
It’s so weird to realize that soulbind was removed basically at launch. I remeber using it a couple of times but I didn’t remember it was removed that early
loving this update recap 🔥
Thanks! I've never tried something like this before :)
@@Hbombyou should do more like this but like compare the updates like “which update got more (insert thing here)?” or “Which update got less (insert thing here)?”
If you remember Soulbind, you should also remember that Half Cash used to be Half Starting Cash!
That's so much better
btd 6 has definetly done a good job keeping the game way more balanced than other games *cough* monster legends *cough* clash royale
Lol, true. They've done a great job
@@Hbombyeah fr tho
True
surprised that you didn't talk about the rollercoaster that is the top patch beast master. it went from being a boat paragon at home, to being literally unusable, to now being an ok upgrade path
To address your confusion as to why people didn't like those updates: you're right, it's because stuff they liked got nerfed.
Not that that's an invalid reason to dislike an update. There's a reason devs try to fix things with buffs if possible. Things you like getting nerfed never feels good. But sometimes, it's gotta be done.
yeah these heavy nerfs have made the game feel like a slog or a chore to play on any map harder than beginner tbh. makes me lose my mind trying to figure out a strategy on every map not knowing what will fail or not.
@@mineturte _figuring out a strategy on every map not knowing what will fail or not_ is the feeling a lot of tower defense players, and puzzle players in general LOVE.
@@aguyontheinternet8436 yeah I'm not saying that is a bad thing at all, to each their own. but personally the downside of having to restart an entire game to just experiment got really exhausting for me at a certain point, especially with all of the "meta" towers changing all the time.
Playing meta is really the most boring way to play for me. If you're trying to push for highest level hardest map completions then it makes sense to try use the best stuff, but it ain't pvp and you can really make basically anything work almost anywhere so driving yourself crazy using the same few top overpowered strats over and over on every map is going to get boring.
12:55 and sometime before this Megalodon was patched which made its latch-on-and-chew attack THOUSANDS of time slower
7:11 Druid of the jungle always had the vines attack, it just didn't use to have the road item part of the vines. it was dumpster tier for obvious reasons even at a... I think it was 700$ pricetag.
The Hard Thorns buff in that same patch that allowed the vines to damage all Bloon types also helped a lot.
@@Nobody1707 at that time the vine attack didn't even need hard thorns to hit lead, which was the only thing it couldn't damage. DoW wants to have MiB to get more thorns so kind of a meh buff.
i remember playing the game for an afternoon shortly after the game launched, but recently came back because my friend randomly asked if i wanted to play it.
its really addictive and even though i didnt really understand lots of the stuff in this video, it was enjoyable to listen and to know the history
The fact that you completely left out the fact that they KILLED Permaspike is wild to me. That tower's pierce and viability was nerfed into the ground, they took my permaspikle behind the shed and shot it dead :(
I mean it was deserved + it’s still viable
Did they kill it? No. Its still Incredibly viable in plenty of scenarios.
What did do was give it a necessary nerf session. Remember at the start of the games life Permanspike was THE BEST tower in the game. Its still Incredibly viable at being a final defense which was what its supposed to be, its made to create a wall that stops any leaks, not a dps option...
Play btdb2 if you want it to be a dps option its Amazing in that game
Yeah. Loved perma spike. But i guess it was for the better, to balance towers out to make them evenly good.
I also find it amazing that if you have the skills almost any tower combo can work in BTD6. I myself love glue gunner, loved it since BTD4- and still love it to this day.
its still an A tier tower... jessu christ people overate the nerf, jsut cuz it cant kill 2 cerams pre round 80 doesnt mean its late game is any worse
it's still viable and the nerf only impacted it before round 80 due to how bloon children spawning works after round 80. PSpike is a lategame tower so it really didn't gutter it like people seem to think
My favorite tier 5 is Super Mines(don’t ask me why), and it’s probably gone from the worst tier five at launch to a really good tower for it’s price. I mean, it’s gotten only 5 nerfs, 2 of which were indirect, and meanwhile it now sits at 30 buffs.
every time someone mentions powercreep I bring up the pre nerf pspike and comanche. i'm 100% certain that with the first few update's towers you could beat most LCCs set today if the player's skill was as good as today. also a good point to bring up is how they constantly nerfed lategame, with round 3000 being possible before and nowadays its impossible to reach round 1000
Day 3 of asking for the battles 2 nuzlocke challenge
Rules:have to start a new account
Once you get defeated you cant use the towers and heroes that youve lost with (it counts if you place them)
Challenge is completed once you get to 100🏆
You have to record the time and trophys that youve gotten through the challenge
You're subscribers have to pick 2 towers to ban and a hero (hero alt is instant eliminated with the hero)
That makes me want to play Battles 2 again!
I'll send this to Boltrix as it's a great idea
@Hbomb Great to know that you like this idea love your videos❤
If someone were to collate all the balance changes and the data/decisions behind them, this would be a truly excellent case study in how to provide ongoing support for a game like this. Along with the business case of how they have stayed profitable and relevant, this one game could be a foundation course in a Business of Gaming master's course.
Dang, I joined a week or so before adora. I didn’t realize how much went on before.
I started playing about a week or two before 27. I had played btd5 years before and I consider it one of my top games when I was 5-12. So I decided to pick up btd6 to give it a go. Now it's my favourite game of all time and I have a good ~1700 - ~2000 hours in it, much to my phones dismay. Despite being a 'newer' player this video was very nostalgic to watch and it just reminded me of how much I love this game and what it means to me. Thank you for making this
Crazy how not once he mentioned the intriguing and fascinating case of perma spike
I mentioned it once :)
It's wild that the perma spactory is still good
@@Hbomb whaaat i totally missed it then
Mb 😅
its not fucking shawshank redemption wtf you talking about it got nerfed a couple of times and its intriguing and fascinating?
@@spoperty4940 it went from being a stample of chimps strategies being a broken and insane tower to being just an Okay tower
Isnt that intriguing???
@@Maszt14 no they just nerfed it, just changed some numbers.
Adding Cult of the Lamb music is a great touch
10:53 That explains so much! Tack Zone was always one of my go tos but then suddenly it felt like it wasn't performing as well. That must have been around that update!
It's funny how you never mentioned the Perma-Spike nerfs. It went from top dog to...
"Being on a farm somewhere."
it went from top dog to a top 20 tower and a top 10 tier 5 still... that is still amazing and is viable on mayn different strats
I think notable changes glossed over was when the VTSG and middle path alchemist were both reworked.
I feel like the biggest nerf was to the permaspike as you could cheese most maps with it. The biggest buff(s) is probably towards the wizard monkey, considering how much buffs it got throughout the years
I think 32.0 was disliked because of the CT gamemode. It has nothing to do with the nerfs of buffs!
Also I strongly disagree about "The Nerf Era". I think NK buffed a lot of things, it wasn't the nerf era for me to be honest! Here's a few recent changes that I think were pretty heavy buffs:
5xx and xx4 Glue Gunner
4xx Wizard
xx4 Sniper
xx5 Heli
xx5 Village
4xx Tack Shooter
x5x Boat (as you said)
x3x Super Monkey
These ones are the ones I remember. I'm sure they are a lot of them in the list! This aside, great video covering the story of BTD6, love to see it! :)
i love this game. from playing btd5 on a browser with my friend to playing btd6 with my gang. this game, this series is freaking awesome
This is amazing, forgot how the game has evolved since launch
I hope you make more longer videos. Love the format!
Thanks! I was worried as I've never made a video like this before
@@Hbomb It's great stuff. I'll say your voice cut offs make it sound a little "rushed", but I like that for when you do your Shorts. Best I can suggest would be to add the "Chapters" so people can jump to the specific sections more quickly that they are most interested about.
Man, they NEED to fix the 042/052 spike factory. A bug a few updates ago made them get rid of the synergy for the ability at the start of rounds. Can you please make a video on this? NK needs to put their attention on this.
I don’t think it was a bug, I think they just removed it lol
@@tacotown4598 no, there was a bug and they hot fixed it by removing the feature.
@@FranXiT damn
Cope
@@tacotown4598 actual zombie
yooooo goat editing
Ayo punji
True. He went hard in this vid
thank ye!
Bro punji has less likes on his comment than hbomb when he has just about the same subs I think. lol
This video is absolutely outstanding, great job!
Geraldo has been helping me blackborder expert maps and honorable mentions are moab glue, bloon sabotage and 0-0-2 village
I remember when my brother told me about btd6 and we both pre-ordered it and as soon as it came out we started playing. Honestly I remember being so familiar with btd5 i didnt liked 5 more but i eventually got used to it.
I like how he’s added cotl music to this. Its a bop and suits the video
I probably played the most when bloonarius dropped and when contested territory was released
Wow this video is a whole Nothing Burger Deluxe with Fries and a Drink
Why is era 3 called "late game"? From my perspective, as someone who really really enjoys going for high rounds they just keep making late game less and less fun to play. Ramping got increased multiple times, which is fair enough but I dont see a reason for the last ramping increase. On top of that the game is practically not coded for late game at all. Anything past r300 is like a fewer dream for people with bad devices. Paragons arent changing freeplay at all either. The main strat is still temple spam and probably will always be temple spam. Paragons are just a neat addition to the regular strat. I dont see any positive changes for this kind of late game during the era called late game. However last update NK did something I as a late game fan really like. They made grand sabo permanent with ninja paragon and they finally made it possible to hide projectiles. And they reduced the ammount of bloons, which is barely noticable so... its more or less a non-change. Those are the kind of changes I think late game really needs. Apart from a rework of the entire game to increase performance. And what late game needs is an actual incentive to do it. Cuz right now there isnt one other than a high number on your profile which is like... yehaa no one cares. The instas arent an incentive cuz you can farm those much better in other ways, that also give a good ammount of monkey money at the same time.
And thats kinda sad for me cuz I feel like finding out the highest possible round is kinda in the nature of tower defense games. But in BTD6 its just a chore to do without any rewards.
holy shit writing stuff on mobile really makes you loose track of how long it is. jesus christ. uh basically:
1. if era 3 "late game" refers to general late game like for experienced players who have played for a long time then all of this doesn matter
2. if it refers to like high rounds then there is no reason to call that era "late game" but more like "anti late game" because:
a: there wasnt a single positive change I can remember of the top of my head for freeplay during that time. quite the opposite actually. ramping was increased, paragons got nerfed and the strat of temple spam will likely never change and certainly didnt change at all with paragons
b: imo NK started going into a freeplay friendly direction again last update. mainly thanks to perma gsabo with ninja paragon and the ability to make projectiles smaller. the round generation change doesnt really matter at all.
c: I find it weird that a tower defense game makes finding out the highest round not just useless but also kinda unfun. which is why I think that it still needs some much needed changes
All of this is 100% true. Ramping changes and vtsg nerfs have done more to effect lategame then paragons could ever dream of. Hell the adora buff pretty much doubled lategame firepower. Just goes to show how overrated paragons are.
Man really interesting looking back on it all like that
What was best way to farm? Boats
What was the best to deal with MOAB Class Bloons? The Absolute Zero
What was the most used Paragon? The Apex Plasma Master
What was dealing the most Damage for its price? The Tack Zone
Easiest Black Border? The Elite Sniper
Best Early Game Bloon Popper? The Wall Of Fire
Easiest way to do with Super Ceramics? Downdraft
Money Saver? Summon Phoenix
Who lost the Best Beard In bloons? HBOMB
I feel the most problems in Update 33.0 and Update 34.0 to be hated a lot
Update 33.0
As NK looking forward on 33.0, they decided to add a Ace Paragon and Dreadbloon. But the stuff was too much for them so decided to delay the boss on 34.0 while also make to 3 paragon per game which makes players wants to get every single paragon in 1 game. Also affect in co-op with 4 players. Only 3/4 but the problem is only 3 in Late game is not enough. Making it to be hated as well.
Update 34.0
As NK looking forward on 33.0, they decided to Breast Handler to Update 34.0 but was replaced with Dreadbloon as NK wants to have some break on January and decided to push the Breast Handler to 36.0 which makes the community 2 Extra updates for it. Only getting a Boss with no new tower.
Lastly, Update 32.0 is my least favorite. As no more infinite Paragons and a teamwork Game Mode but the problem is Lack Of Communication. Plauers mostly use Discord Servers to make a team. I'm sure okay the Builder they added but I never use it since Doomship was added
Huh, I suppose I did shave around then.
As for the updates, I forgot about the delays. That probably had a huge role in the dislikes
Paragon limit was never a problem.
Cult of the lamb music as background.. wtf.. throwing me off so hard after just 100% that game
love that Cult of the Lamb soundtrack. Amazing video!
i didn't realise this until today but i actually first downloaded btd6 within months of its release, which explains why i remember stuff like the release of the mortar monkey and even i think benjamin.
Dang. You're a true og
@@Hbomb yeah, i'm used to being like late in many games lifespan, but i'm now realising that many of my favourite games i've been playing since very early in their history
BTD6 had more love is 5 years than BTD5, shows how big this title strives to be.
Now just wait until BTD7...
Jk, it is crazy how much they've added to this game though
I would argue that 22.0 and 27.0 changed btd6 forever. I think this because 22.0 added challenge browser and 27.0 added bosses, and then 27.0 also added a completely new concept and mechanic (also known as paragons)
he didn't mention the most important change, the commas in between the numbers
Also quests got added, didn't see it in the video
Nice work tho! Really informative
True. I am excited to see where quests go in the future
whatever update the engi got added in was my favourite. i think i remember when the x-x-4 or x-x-5 engi I THINK was able to pop leads with his nailguns too
What I love about Hbomb is that he doesn't brag about his black boarders
Yeah cuz he’d get completely shit on lol
When Obyn said "may the spirits of the forests awaken" by that tree placement they instantly woke up and I wonder what happened to oybn
and then the corvus nation attacked
Perma spike surviving all these nerfs is amazing. even in 37.0 the index ranks it in A which is pretty high like top 20 and is a top 10 tier 5 overall. I wish people tested it in a more realistic scenario instead of looking at "omg dies to 2 cerams pre round 80 it must be a dead tower" when in reality its still an amazong tower late game esp vs ddt's and makes them a non worry
It still hurts, though.
@@ADudeWithAChannel obv hurts... like i would agree but it did deserve it
@@darthhydreigon820 no not really
@@ADudeWithAChannel yes... it was a a top 5 or top 1 tier 5.. it deserves nerfs... what needs buffs is long life spikes and deadly spikes
Best tower defense game HANDS DOWN.
I wouldn’t say hands down as plants vs zombies exists but it’s definitely in the top 3 of tower defence games of all time for its time
if were comparing the mobile versions alone, pvz is ad-infested, to be fair were comparing a free game to a paid game but pvz already had IAPs so less ads would be great@@jams_toast1
dont forget the best bug of all time, temple buff stacking.
No mention of odysseys and contested territories?
The upcoming Update 38 Will be a New boss called *Phayze* , very similar to lych this is a new boss we haven't seen before, all we know is the name of the boss and nothing else but there will be an expecting teaser for the new boss coming very soon
On top of that in Update 40 there will be a sub Paragon and a similar Gamemode like contested territory: *Boss Rush*
What is the sub paragon like?
@@RCMchannelandMOREhow would they know? They’re not time travelers lol
@@RCMchannelandMORE let's hope it's Schrödings Sub, where it's submerged and unsubmerged at the same time.
my favorite update was when they added reconnecting to co-op solely because my wifi is spotty
Oooo. That is big then!
Im sad total transformation + plasma monkey fan club combo didnt get mentioned
i remember starting around 9.0 or 10.0
my brother was doing a swim meet til i realised 11.0 was releasing, which i noticed was having co op
me and him were one of the first ever to play a co op match of btd 6
People dislike the 30’s update because they actually had to get good at the game 😂
😂
@@Hbombas a wise man once said: skill issue
Video idea: Which Heroes had the best strats/were the most powerful in notable updates.
Right off the bat, I think of release Sauda and Geraldo who were both pretty powerful as soon as they came out.
13:21
I have not touched the btd6 community for almost a year now.
When i heard this i audibly screamed.
I’m just gonna say this now paragon limit was a super overheated change. It did basically nothing to the game’s meta while provoking unmatched community outrage.
the community outrage because of that was stupid. cuz not only did it not really change boss battles it didnt change freeplay either. cuz paragons never really had a big impact on the freeplay meta anyways. they just were a nifty addition to the already meta temple spam.
It was horrible when first introduced, because it applied outside of bosses. Why shouldn't you be able to get every paragon just for funsies in your lategame logs run? That hurts no one, so naturally people flamed NK for it. The limit makes a lot more sense in bosses.
@@jimmyjohnjoejr this is what I’m talking about, people throwing massive fits over absolutely nothing.
Paragon limit also really doesn’t hurt anyone. Except maybe those uneducated people who actually think paragons are worth using for freeplay.
And secondly, nk gave a reason for the paragon limit. It’s because they’re planning to release a lot of powerful paragons with a lot of powerful abilities, and allowing them all at once would be too broken. You should be excited that paragons were going to be more powerful and have extremely strong game changing abilities, not throwing a fit that you can’t get your favorite paragon in your mediocre logs freeplay run. And if you really cared that much about freeplay you’d have thrown riots when vtsg was nerfed or when freeplay scaling was buffed beyond belief.
So here’s what “the paragon limit” is actually about: little Timmy is angry he can’t get all the paragons in one game and goes to throw a fit about it on the internet.
And before you say “but what about freedom sandbox game blah blah blah” I don’t care. Nerfs and changes happen all the time. What normal people do when their favorite tower is nerfed is get a little upset and then go on with their lives. And that’s what should have happened with the paragon limit.
@@Lt_KoroCORRECT
every update changes btd6
You're not wrong :)
I remember downloading this for the first time after a major surgery I had just gotten. Can't believe it's come so far.
Good video, but I notice you never mentioned how the beast handler was so broken that it could 1-shot BADs at launch. There might be some power creep in there somewhere
it still does one-shot bads until 145, it used to tick 20x the intended amount, causing it to bite like 20x more
Damn, I remember how BROKEN the dartling gunner was it was released, it had to be nerfed like 3 times cuz it was still to broken, mostly BEZ.
You forgot how op was alch buff and commanche commandee in the beginning
9:22 also a fun fact about Geraldo (some might already know it) but Geraldo did a 1TC on scrapyard when he was first released😅
Crazy how we went from 3.0 to 27.0 then finally 32.0
I know people will say the nerfs were necessary but personally they killed my enthusiasm for the game. I been playing the game less and less since update 32 and now almost never play. Update 31 was by far my favorite, I personally enjoyed when the game was more relaxing and easier to play and the community was able to make crazy difficult challenges in order to keep the game difficult. I feel the nerf prevent people from trying new challenges and make the game less fun for both casual and competitive players. If I want to challenge myself I can place weaker towers but if I want to place geraldo and go to round 300 I also can. Anyway that it just my opinion.
unfortunately it devalued chimps as the "difficult" mode, and black bordering by extension. you have people like you on one side but then you have the "chimps is too easy nowadays it poses zero challenge" players
Music at the start: Cult of the Lamb: Work and Worship
It's crazy to see the amount of changes that happened after 32.0. I took a big break around the time 32.0 was released and didn't really touch the game. I'd gotten full black borders by abusing the op middle path snipers, and my favourite game mode, races, were getting a little stale. The amount of balancing Ninja Kiwi has done from then til now has completely changed the game. It's made it a lot more fun to experiment with different stuff instead of just using the 'meta' towers, because now there just isn't as large a benefit from using them. Overall I think the game is in a good and healthy spot, and hopefully Ninja Kiwi can find ways to keep it fresh and exciting.
Really funny how you described it as the nerf era. While I would have called it the buff era.
The only nerfs we got were not destructive. They were o ly there to bring the power a bit lower. While all the buffs we got were amazingly interesting and creative. New abilities were given to monkeys. Reworks were happening every patch. And already interesting bad towers were buffed but kept their originality.
Instead of making 10 towers with the same purpose, they gave them distinctions, and made the cross path and prior upgrades different enouththat it made them usefully in really different situations.
While the already amazing towers were only given stats nerfs, and none of their abilities were taken out. Making them interesting towers to strategise around and not braindeadly speed running their good crosspath.
I still remember when Gerardo came out,he was so op and needed to get nerfed and it was all I could see in co-op
great video as always broski
i think a new era upon us, the era of player made content, which would help Ninja Kiwi in keeping the game fresh
The funny thing about Bloons is that it's balanced like an MMO, but it's a tower defense game. There's not much reason to be balanced other than for replayability. It's awesome that they do this. I wish they could bring make a Bloons monkey city game mode for 6. Early BMC before the micro transactions.
I wish you talked more about bank farming when deposit strats were prominent. Feels wierd not talking about it in a history video
watched it on half speed because the video essay was so jam packed and well made 😩😮💨
Just looking at the most recent btd 6 index chimps tier list you can see how balanced the game is currently. Almost every tower and hero has viability in some right
Obyn:
@@tacotown4598 "almost"
@@BirdGod glaive lord:
@@tacotown4598 "almost"
@@BirdGod XBM:
XXL trap:
Bomb blitz:
Inferno ring:
Shall I go on?
Also, just because some towers are usable doesn’t mean all are created equal. Sure I could use aow or Apache prime but why would I when stuff like Gerry snipers and gmn exist.
The game does have very good balance but it’s a stretch to say every tower has some sort of viability. Viability implies that they will be worth using at some time, and that really isn’t true for a lot of towers for some reason or another
My favorite update? 22.0. It was just, different back then. Updates are better, but the Dartling gun was just. So. Hype.
The nerfs to 2-0-X Tack Shooters and the Monkeyopolis are two changes I've never fully understood.
Not every crosspath can be equally viable. Overdrive and Tack Zone didn't need an indirect attack speed nerf. And only the "Miniopolis" needed to be killed off, not the "full-sized" Monkeyopolis.
they Nerf the 2-0-0 for tack shooter because it was too good for tack Zone and below i think they will try to balance other crosspaths for other towers
I agree that killing off the full sized opolis was pretty stupid considering it required a lot of setup and was primarily used for late game and boss events; however I do understand the nerf to TZ. TZ is still overall a really good tower, the only problem I have is the middle path still needs a major buff.
@@cyborgbob1017 TZ after the nerfs is still a Great pick but about the full sized monkeyopolis i don't use it very often other than bosses and E bosses
Full size opolis was just as busted as mini opolis. I’m still salty it was nerfed but I can’t say it wasn’t deserved
@@tacotown4598 that is not even true, mega-opolis required WAYY more setup and didn’t give you anywhere NEAR enough money
Feels like engineer monkey was last year. Damn I remember GRINDING him when he came out
Man, I hate Era 4. I've barely played the game since they started nerfing everything into the ground. Beast Handler was pretty fun until they made it unusably bad. It just doesn't seem like there are any fun towers left.
beast handler is still insanely good.
beast handler is an amazing tower... sure top path beast handler is not as good but it was never meant to be as good... so it was just that weak on release.
there are many viable towers.. and every tower can win a game of chimps when used right, u can win with BMA its just much harder
Get used to it. The nerfs don’t really effect anything unless you’re an expert player doing chimps challenges on expert maps, and you most definitely are not one of those players consider you just said the beast handler is shit lmao
Great background music, love Cult of the Lamb OST
CotL Music = 🐐
BTD6 sent me through the tutorial and I was like,"Dont you quote the dark magic to me witch, I was there when it was written."
Ello beard man
Ello
When was pat fusty a top tier hero wth I messed that one
Pat's roar made it really easy to get through tough rounds through all stages of the game.
Especially since you'd pair him with either a Tack Zone or Grandmaster Ninja who's tier 4 upgrades also had many projectiles.